The Marketing hack I used to break into travel writing

Daunted by the masthead? Trying to break into magazines produced by a multi-pub conglomerate?

You could literally spend days researching yourself silly before you finally click “send” on your LOI or query. Or you could try this shortcut:

Email other writers who already have a relationship with the editor you want to write for.

This approach works for a few reasons. First, that writer has probably been where you are. They get how hard it is to break into a new market. Two: they may have inside info you don’t that will help you tailor your pitch. Finally, it’s always nice to email a query with a name your prospective editor will (or feels she should) recognize.

So far I’ve gotten nothing but positive responses. One writer wrote back with the email for her editor. Another let me know her website wasn’t currently hiring freelance bloggers (information that wasn’t on said website) but asked me to forward a résumé and clips instead for a internally posted gig.

The first connection landed me an assignment with a top inflight publisher.

And I think this will work in the future for other travel-oriented publications, markets where my story idea—most likely my experience of a particular destination—doesn’t present much competition for the writer I’m connecting with.

One comment on “The Marketing hack I used to break into travel writing”

I love what you are doing. Would you have time to answer a quick question? What is the best practice for managing clips and freelance portfolio? I’m just getting started, and have a few clips, but I’m stumped because drag and drop into an E-mail query isn’t working for my .JPG files. I notice you use pinterest, but it failed to take me to the one article I tried to click through to: the one at mibiz.com about the architect and sustainable workspace. Thank you for your time! In return, I can offer you a great Michigan contact for city planning, and community development, Harriet Saperstein, let me know if you’d like her contact info.